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Welcome to my padlet which will have information on the difference between stocks and cryptocurrency. We look at the pros and cons of both and how they are similar and differ.

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Website 1# - The Balance - Should You Invest Invest in Stocks or Bitcoin?

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Website 1# - The Balance - Should You Invest Invest in Stocks or Bitcoin?

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This website had some very interesting material on the differences and recent impact on the rise of cryptocurrency vs. stocks. Stocks have always been something people would purchase in hopes by the time they retire they can sell them at a higher price and live nicely off the money. Cryptocurrency may now be in the same market for people looking for a risky retirement saving

An interesting statement that made me pick this website was the fact 1 Bitcoin surpassed  an ounce of gold on the stock market. Another interesting fact was that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are becoming another retirement saving option plan. People are actually buying into cryptocurrencies with the hopes their investment will pay off in their later years.

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While market watchers await the arrival of Dow 20,000, Bitcoin, the nascent digital currency nearing its 8th birthday, make actually reach its own milestone before the Dow as it continues its multi-year bullish rally towards $1000.

Since the Presidential election of Donald Trump, markets can more clearly price future expectations and in turn, both Bitcoin and the Dow Jones Industrial Average are rallying to near unprecedented heights. The surge of Bitcoin's price, however, has primarily been fueled through interest abroad, with geopolitical pressures and monetary environments in China, India, and Venezuela pushing investors towards the independently minded digital alternative.

Over the years, Bitcoin has performed strongly with significant returns and continuing customer adoption. Of all currencies worldwide, Bitcoin yielded greater returns than any for 5 out of the previous 6 years:

2011- Bitcoin +1500%

2012- Bitcoin +299%

2013- Bitcoin +5400%

2014- USD +13%

2015- Bitcoin +37%

2016- Bitcoin +130%

These are outstanding payouts over a 5-year stretch for any asset, stock, bond, derivative, or currency. With bitcoin soaring again, the underlying computational network stronger and more secure than ever, and a multitude of reliable, user-friendly wallets services, applications, and resources arising, is it time for investors to take a more serious look at investing in Bitcoin?

Over the past 5 years, the grouping of major technology companies known as FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) stocks in total have performed well, with Amazon seeing 342.02% 5-year returns, and Netflix seeing an astounding 1156.9%, and Google seeing 148.36%. While these familiar companies garner a majority of the attention, a 5-year technical analysis demonstrates bitcoin's long-term reliability, resilience, and propensity to provide significant returns for investors to outperform these traditional investments.

An investor who invested in Bitcoin 5 years ago would have seen total returns of 22,004%! Given the risks of investing in the new, formerly experimental, and open-source Bitcoin Blockchain technology, it would make sense that such strong long-run returns would arise.

The graph atop this page shows normalized 5-year returns of Bitcoin against the FANG stocks. There are 4 primary takeaways from that chart:

Bitcoin is maturing as a retirement portfolio option: If an investor purchased bitcoin at any day other than a stretch of 11 days in late 2013, that investor would now be returning a profit. Because Bitcoin's price started at near-0 and has shown so much fluctuation and growth, it has been difficult for the average investor to involve themselves confidently. These, however, are side-effects of pricing an emergent digital asset with no predecessor. Now that the market has increased liquidity, security, and regulatory guidance, a more mature bitcoin industry is encouraging wider adoption. Ecosystem-level metrics show that the Bitcoin network has been functioning well, as transactions per day have risen 258% over the past 2 years, while network participation fees and mining difficulty have grown similarly. In turn, investors should feel more confident in Bitcoin's long-term viability and existence, as it cannot be easily shut down and incentives are not aligned among stakeholders for it to 'go away'.

1. FANG assets productive, Bitcoin more productive: A quick glance at the normalized chart above signals that, generally, Bitcoin has outperformed the overall strong FANG assets. While Amazon remains bullish, Bitcoin's rise shows that its percentage-based returns have been stronger than any other asset class above.

2. Bitcoin technical resilience: Bitcoin's technical patterns of numerous ascending triangles in the graph above demonstrate the investment's resilience to prosper even through multi-year downturns. Because there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins, the scarcity of the asset class, combined with increasing demand abroad, is making its medium-term growth a safer bet. Moreover, the rapidly rising mining difficulty on the bitcoin network puts additional upward pressure on the global exchange pricing so that miners, many of whom are based in China, can meet their operational costs.

Bitcoin macro-economically hedges: Whereas the traditional assets and FANG stocks tend to cluster and correlate, bitcoin remains relatively independent of the traditional pressures such as end-of-quarter reporting, company performance, and institutional confidence of public stakeholders, which often distorts markets. Bitcoin provides an excellent hedge against potential downfalls of traditional assets and is a distributed, open source project with no centralized organization or authorities overseeing its governance.

The top-performing FANG asset, Amazon in particular, seems to be on the radar of many money managers for its investment potential in 2017. For example, Evercore recently named its Top Internet pick for 2017. When compared directly against Bitcoin, however, Amazon's returns only outperform the digital currency in 1 out of 4 years. Christmas timed investments of $1000 yield Bitcoin's returns outperforming Amazon significantly if entered in each year except 2013.

While many are scared away from Bitcoin at first, its performance as an investment speaks for itself. Bitcoin's historical performance against an established player like Amazon is a bullish indicator that additional strong returns can follow in coming years.

Another encouraging sign that signals maturity is the relatively lower daily returns volatility that the market has experienced in recent years. Bitcoin was previously perceived as an extremely volatile investment, and rightfully so. This trend, however, has lessened as the markets have matured.

Variation has decreased to levels more synonymous with traditional currencies, with daily standard deviations on returns having decreased from 5 to 10 per day from 2014 and before towards current levels under 2. This is likely due to deeper liquidity within exchanges, a more thorough understanding and use around Bitcoin, and overall confidence in the long-term viability of the network without panic-induced buying and selling. With lower variability, the asset takes on lower risk and becomes more comparable to the investment behavior seen in gold as a global hedge against currency collapses and negative market pressures.

Gold is down by 29.66% sitting at a near 5-year low. Conversely, Bitcoin is on the verge of being worth more than an ounce of gold for the first time ever, with gold at $1155 and bitcoin again trading at $969.00 at ​the time of writing. This is a significant shift away from traditional investing logic as well, as Bitcoin's portability, security, and global nature are increasingly appealing to investors who may have otherwise looked towards gold or silver as a hedging investment.

Bitcoin, traditionally viewed as a "digital gold", contains overlapping properties of limited scarcity and its resurgent rally combined with the relatively cheap price of gold shows that perhaps now is an opportunistic time to buy the two. Particularly as instability and uncertainty geopolitically may turn investors back towards both modern and digitally scarce stores of values in 2017 and beyond.

It is important to remember that Bitcoin is the breakthrough of 40 years of research in computer science, and in turn, this enables a new form of digital asset creation. Just as gold is scarce, these properties can be mirrored online.

Of surprise to many, the Bitcoin network itself has never been hacked. Yes, Bitcoin exchanges such as Bitfinex and Mt.Gox have been hacked, but these are now relics as Bitcoin service providers have matured towards sounder business practices. The Bitcoin network continues to function properly and securely itself due to an exponential increase in the network's computing power, or "mining" difficulty.

Bitcoin derives its value as an investment vehicle and as a working, global store of value due to the electricity used to power a cryptographic hash function on the distributed Bitcoin Blockchain.

In summary, both sociological and technical signals are signaling that Bitcoin is not a technology that will "die" or go away. With the very real "War on cash" escalating in India (LINK), Australia, combined with an uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment and a monetary crisis in Venezuela, conditions for Bitcoin's demand-side reliability have heightened.

Bitcoin can provide a superior alternative for people in the developing world looking for reliable digital payment channels. Investor's knowledge and awareness of Blockchain technology combined with market activity lend bitcoin to being an investment option with a mysterious, glowing glare. With Mr. Trump's appointment of pro-gold and pro-bitcoin former Congressman Republican Mick Mulvaney to the Office of Budget and Management, there is more optimism in regulatory and entrepreneurial circles.

Even given these bullish indicators, Bitcoin is still an experimental technology. Investors should take time and due diligence to learn more about Bitcoin's history, community, and technology before making the investment.

Do not be prepared to invest any more than you are willing to lose! Many believe that Bitcoin will either go "to the moon" and rise quickly, or eventually, geopolitical and regulatory pressures may cause users to flock elsewhere and drive the price to $0. Only time will tell, but in the present indicators are signaling that it may indeed finally be time to invest in Bitcoins.

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While market watchers await the arrival of Dow 20,000, Bitcoin, the nascent digital currency nearing its 8th birthday, make actually reach its own milestone before the Dow as it continues its multi-year bullish rally towards $1000.

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Video 1# - Stocks VS Cryptocurrency Gains

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Video 1# - Stocks VS Cryptocurrency Gains

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The point of this video is to basically describe recent occurrences in how Cryptocurrency and stock market changes. Cryptocurrency is clearly becoming a wealth multiplier in the right hands. Investing at the right times and in correct cryptocurrencies can clearly be very similar to investing in stocks. They both have their risks though in different ways and similar ways.

I liked how the creator of the video had a chart showing how much you would now have if you invested money in different cryptocurrencies at certain times and then one year later.

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Stocks VS Cryptocurrency Gains:  Best Crypto Stocks 2018

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This image really reflects a lot about the emerging cryptocurrency market. Most people think of this when it comes to cryptocurrency as it is the most recognized symbol and the strangest part is that cryptocurrency has no physical form. This photo is everywhere yet these coins are worthless because bitcoin is only traded through the internet and is not a physical object.

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Website 2# - Forbes - How is trading Cryptocurrency Different From Stocks?

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Website 2# - Forbes - How is trading Cryptocurrency Different From Stocks?

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Losses and no security is one major thing that separates stocks and cryptocurrency. Stocks are usually insured by the broker or company you are investing with. Cryptocurrency has since its beginning had issues with it's legitimacy.

A major phrase that made me use this website was when the mention of cryptocurrency security was mentioned. There has been just too many instances of cryptocurrency just wiping away with ease and the owner of it having no trail of ever owning any.

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How is trading cryptocurrency different from stocks and forex trading? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by John Hwang, Former Senior Options Trader at Morgan Stanley, on Quora:
Many newcomers to cryptocurrencies believe that investing in cryptocurrencies/tokens through a cryptocurrency exchange is like buying stocks at Fidelity or ETrade. The truth couldn't be any more different. There are many, many more differences, but here are a few..
#1 Unmitigated exposure to insider trading and pump and dump schemes
In any asset, there is significant informational asymmetry between insiders and outsiders. In stocks, insiders are people like executives and mutual funds who have material, unfair advantage over outsiders who don't have access to the latest financials, board room meeting minutes, etc. In cryptocurrencies, insiders are 1) the executives of the companies behind cryptocurrency tokens, 2) mining pools, and 3) large holders (i.e. "whales"). Regardless of the asset, insiders have access to critical information sooner than the outsiders, which allows them to buy before rallies, or sell before selloffs.

Unless you are an insider, this informational asymmetry is bad if left unregulated, because it rigs the game in favor of insiders. In the long run, this will discourage outsiders from investing at all, because they want to avoid losing money. If unmitigated insider trading activity dominates, then investors will eventually become jaded with investing in general and move onto other assets that promote fair trading activities.

For this reason, stocks have strict insider trading laws and processes that protect outsiders. The system is not perfect, but it at least incentivizes insiders not to trade on material non-public information. The punishment for insider trading activity is jail time, reputational damage, repatriation of profits, and severe fines, which is enough to scare most insiders.

In cryptocurrencies, however, there are no laws protecting outsiders. Why? Simply because regulations have not caught up to the rapid rise in cryptocurrency trading, and also many altcoin founders and exchanges operate outside of the U.S. in countries like Switzerland and Singapore. Many cryptocurrency exchanges also do not collect any identity information (name, national id), etc., which makes tracking and punishing the actual people behind unfair trading activities difficult. Not only that, these exchanges are currently not reporting suspicious activities to any government agency. Therefore, no government has any data to determine whether certain activities are illegal or not, or to convict anyone.
#2 The lack of deposit or security insurance
If you buy stocks at any U.S. broker dealer, both your cash and stocks are insured up to $500,000 each. Cash and stocks are insured by FDIC and SIPC, respectively. This means that if your brokerage (ETtrade, Fidelity, Charles Schwab) ever goes out of business and wipes out your deposits, then the government will reimburse you (up to $500,000). This insurance provides significant peace of mind to stock investors.

Cryptocurrency exchanges, however, do not provide either cash or asset insurance. The only exceptions are Coinbase and Gemini, which only insure cash deposits.

Cryptocurrencies are not even treated as legal securities in the U.S., meaning security insurance like SIPC does not apply. From a legal standpoint, cryptocurrencies are not legal tenders, which makes their status as asset equivalent to collectibles like Baseball cards or beanie babies. Thus, exchanges could lose all of investors' cryptocurrency assets, and investors will not enjoy any government protection. This means cryptocurrency investors need to stay vigilant about the financial health and integrity of their exchanges.
#3 Not backed by any revenue, assets, or business model
Almost all publicly traded stocks are backed by companies that generate some revenue and assets. The same cannot be said of all cryptocurrencies and tokens, since most of them have been created out of thin air in the past year.

Take WeTrust tokens, for example. This company has not released any figures about either revenue, user base, or any tangible products since its founding in 2016. That did not stop it from having a market cap exceeding over $100 million. This valuation happened as a result of WeTrust promising its investors of the value of WeTrust's product ecosystem, which essentially constitutes a pre-sale. With pre-sales, however, there is no real mechanism for holding the company accountable to fulfilling its promises to investors. The company can theoretically shut down shop one day without any warning and keep the funds it raised, and WeTrust's investors will have little legal recourse. This type of fund raising would not have been viable in the public markets, which have much higher requirements for entry.
#4 The constant risk of irreversible, permanent loss
If hackers steal your private keys by breaching into your cryptocurrency exchange, then you can permanently lose all your money. And since cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible (because of Blockchain), this loss will be permanent, and nobody will be able to help you. Suing the exchange won't help either since it can just conveniently declare bankruptcy.

So how common are security incidents at cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets? Far too common. Counting just the high profile hacks, more than$150 million has been stolen or lost in 2017. The actual losses are probably higher, since many thefts go unreported.

While scams and phishing also happen with stocks, stocks and deposits can't just disappear permanently. Even if hackers somehow succeeded in wiring customers' money to themselves, these wires can be reversed. Case in point, there hasn't been an incident where a registered stock brokerage permanently lost customer funds or assets in recent memory.
#5 The lack of price consistency across exchanges & order protection
With stocks, you are guaranteed by the SEC that your limit orders aren't filled by a worse price than the best offer or best bid across all exchanges.

With cryptocurrencies, the best bid offer is all over the place, and exchanges have no legal obligation to price match or price improve.

As a result, picking a good exchange is extremely important for trading cryptocurrencies.

Stock trading in almost all developed countries are regulated by strict investor protection laws. Cryptocurrency trading is completely unregulated, and most of them operate freely from any country's jurisdiction. This lack of regulation has the following consequences for the average cryptocurrency investor.

This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

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How Is Trading Cryptocurrency Different From Stocks And Forex Trading?

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How is trading cryptocurrency different from stocks and forex trading? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by John Hwang, Former Senior Options Trader at Morgan Stanley, on Quora: Many newcomers to cryptocurrencies believe that investing in cryptocurrencies/tokens through a cryptocurrency exchange is like buying stocks at Fidelity or ETrade.

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This video is very informative of  the way stocks are traded and how you make profit off of them but also their risks. It also raises the awarness of cryptocurrency and how they are different from stocks. They seem to be a lot more risky and stocks tend to appeal to more educated buyers.

I liked how this video gave information on how a stock is traded and how cryptocurrency isn't as big as the stock market. Also that cryptocurrency has no regulations.

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This photo is more or less something you either understand or just recognize as the stock market screen. All of the numbers and percentages are the share values for each stock in a company. The arrows represent either gains or losses in stock. I believe though cryptocurrency is it's own market it will one day be incorporated into the stock market. Maybe not all of them but to some extent.

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Website 3# - Medium - 6 Main Differences Between Cryptocurrency and Stock Trading

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Website 3# - Medium - 6 Main Differences Between Cryptocurrency and Stock Trading

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To begin I'd like to mention I liked the layout of this website and how it mentioned in a short amount, the informative differences between the two. Something the cryptocurrency world does that is different than the stock exchange is that the market is 24/7 meaning every minute the value changes. The stock market opens and closes at certain times every day.

The reason I picked this website was because of how short and quick it gave me the information I was looking for. Cryptocurrency seems to have a lot of negatives but still seems to be an up and coming competitor with the stock market in terms of trading.

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The cryptocurrency market is always being compared to the stock market as if they are the same thing. In the midst of 2017 of ICOs, a lot of people considered that cryptocurrency and stock markets were the same thing. They assumed that ICOs were just a new way of penny stocks. While there are some similarities such as the prices are determined by demand. However, there are some differences between them and here are 6 differences:
Market Volatility
Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile compared to the traditional stock market. The volatility of cryptocurrency is large. Cryptocurrency, unlike the stock market, has no intrinsic or tangible value. The only cryptocurrency that could have somewhat of a tangible value would be Ethereum, since it is a blockchain of a smart contract for other platforms. The cryptocurrency market is also easily manipulatable while the stock market can't be as easily manipulated. This causes the market to fluctuate. A coin could easily increase or decrease 100x its initial value.
24/7 Market
The value of coins change every minute, every hour, and everyday. Since cryptocurrencies are peer to peer because of the network, this means that they could be traded by any 2 individuals anytime of the day. Cryptocurrency exchanges also work 24/7 for the market with maintenance breaks as an exception.
Security Insurance by Securities Investor Protection Corporation, SIPC
SIPC protects cash stored in a brokerage up to $500,000 and every stock trader in the US is required by law to buy security insurance. In the cryptocurrency world, exchanges are not required to carry security insurance. The only cryptocurrency exchanges that offer security insurance on deposits are Gemini and Coinbase for cash deposits.
Price Inconsistency
All the cryptocurrency exchanges have a slight price mismatch throughout from Poloniex to Okex because there is no centralized agent that guarantees the limit orders to not be filled with the worst price, compared to the best offers across all exchanges. Therefore, the best bid in cryptocurrency is never stable. This is why it is the trader's job to find the best exchange to trade with.
User Base and Revenue
There is no such thing for most of the coins! Most of the coins' prices are strictly due to speculations. They are not real companies with user base, revenue, or assets. For example, Dogecoin was created as a joke but the value increased since its inception due to speculation. Almost all the stocks in the market are backed by real companies with real user base and revenue.
Vulnerable Assets
Cryptocurrency trading requires the investors to store the coins themselves and sometimes, these assets are really vulnerable because new traders are unsure on how to secure their storage. Hackers have stolen about 14% of cryptocurrency supplies. Also, there are a lot of investors who lose their key to their storage. If the user's cryptocurrency is stolen or lost, there is almost no chance of recovering it. In the stock market, most of hacked assets could still be recovered.

Despite the differences, cryptocurrency and stock trading are both great ways to make money. Make sure to keep in mind on the key differences between them.

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6 Main Differences Between Cryptocurrency and Stock Trading

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The cryptocurrency market is always being compared to the stock market as if they are the same thing. In the midst of 2017 of ICOs, a lot of people considered that cryptocurrency and stock markets were the same thing. They assumed that ICOs were just a new way of penny stocks.

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Website 3# - Cryptocurrency Vs. Stock Market

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Website 3# - Cryptocurrency Vs. Stock Market

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This video gives a very basics and simplified rundown of both the stock market and cryptocurrency. It is risky but if you play your investments right weather it's the stock market or cryptocurrency.

It was good to see a video with a clearer understanding for the uneducated viewer of stocks or cryptocurrency. It clarified their difference of the fact buying a stock is buying a portion of a company where cryptocurrency is buying parts of a block-chain. Though cryptocurrency is risky it seems to be an amazing opportunity to make money fast. You can also lose money very fast though as well.

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Cryptocurrency Vs. Stock Market: Which is the Most Profitable?

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Website 4# - How Does Investing in Stocks vs Crypto Compare

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Website 4# - How Does Investing in Stocks vs Crypto Compare

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Comparing the two is very helpful not only if you want to know the differences but also if you're new to either market and want to figure out which is best for you. This website helps with that as it shows the differences of both helping you understand how the differ.

I liked how this website showed a breakdown of how both markets functioned and their differences. The more knowledge you have of either market will benefit you if you decide to trade in one of them. One of the biggest things iread on this website was that Bitcoin only makes up $41 billion of the worlds money where as the stock market makes up $66.8 trillion. Basically cryptocurrency has a long way to go to catch up.

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Since the inception of financial markets and instruments people have been scouring the landscape to find the most reliable ways of achieving financial independence. The approach to this issue has mostly been two-pronged:

some prefer to "stash" their hard earned money for longer periods of time in an instrument and have it grow organically with the instrument, aka investing

others prefer to be more active and buy instruments on a cheap while selling them on a high, aka trading

No matter which one of these approaches people prefer, the instruments they get to pick have mostly been the same. There are various asset classes on offer out there and they include both stocks and, as of recently, cryptocurrencies. Even though you can invest and trade both of these, there are some stark differences between them that need to be pointed out.

A stock is a part of the company's equity which is divided among its owners and can be divided into shares (which are smaller portions of equity that can be sold to general public with lower investment potential). These stocks can be both invested in and traded on a stock market. Investing in shares of a company means that in return you expect to gain some benefits as long as the company is operating profitably. You hold shares and are given a part of the earnings and assets of the company in which invested.

Stock markets function on the basis of stock exchanges, aka centralized entities which connect the stock brokers and traders and allow them to buy and sell stocks. The stock prices are created by an order-matching engine as a reflection of the stock supply and demand; they are usually very stable and fluctuate in single-digit percentages per year.

Stock markets of today are computerized, internet connected, heavily regulated order-matching engines which are designed to conjoin the supply and demand and let them exchange money for stock and vice versa. Every member of the stock market needs to be verified by fitting certain requirements which are a direct result of years of experience with stock buying/selling. Just like every company needs to provide certain proof that it is capable of generating a set amount of revenue per year, every potential trader needs to provide proof that he possesses a certain amount of capital which he can invest into stocks. This way, stock market makes sure that both the capital and the stocks that are shown on its supply/demand charts are real. Stock markets charge fees for validating its members, processing their orders and selling past order data to interested brokers who want to analyze the market movements and predict the future ones.
🏆Read: Best Cyptocurrency Exchanges 2018
People don't directly invest in these exchanges; instead they give their money and investment instructions to brokers who are registered and licensed to trade on a desired exchange. The broker represents & "vouches" for you at the stock exchange and holds your trading cash and stocks. The stock market system usually functions by having one (regional) stock exchange company as the only venue allowed to trade stocks issued by companies registered in its jurisdiction - e.g. all Brazilian companies with publicly available shares are traded on the B3 exchange). The situation in USA is somewhat different, as there are 11 registered stock exchanges operating on its territory. In order to protect the trading public, US regulators have initiated creation of price protection mechanisms: the result is that all US exchanges are networked to see each other's best prices and will forward their orders to an exchange engine that is currently "hosting" the best price.

In Europe there are 3 stock trading exchanges but these trading venues are not networked to forward orders to each other. Since the brokers compete for clients' business, the brokers are incentivized to connect to each venue and utilize Smart Order Routing (SOR) applications to achieve the best prices for their trades.

Therefore, whenever you "trade" stocks from the comfort of your home, you are communicating to a broker who is in turn communicating with the stock exchange in your name. The entire system is heavily regulated both by its participants and by the government, which usually stays away from investing into stocks. These centralized sets of regulatory measures give everyone trust in the stock markets.

A cryptocurrency is a digital currency in which various encryption techniques are used to generate the units of the currency and to verify its transactions. This encryption is done thanks to a network of miners and nodes, making the entire system decentralized and out of the hands of a centralized entity.

Investing in a cryptocurrency means that you are investing in the project itself. There are many different currencies which have all sorts of applications. If more people share the belief that a currency has a good project and good application behind it, then the demand for the currency grows and makes it more expensive. The implementation and adoption of a currency are the major deciding factors for the market value of its coins, and the company behind them.

Crypto prices are also created by the supply and demand meeting and deciding on how much they are willing to take/pay for a cryptocurrency. These prices are almost by rule very volatile; we have seen many cryptocurrencies rise or fall by 100% in a matter of days. The creation of these prices is much different than the one that we have in the stock markets, mostly due to the decentralized nature of the crypto markets and the lack of regulations on crypto price manipulation.

Cryptocurrency markets function thanks to crypto exchanges, which offer people a chance to turn their fiat into crypto and to turn their crypto into other kinds of crypto (there are currently over 1000 active cryptocurrencies out there). Every crypto market offers a certain amount of cryptocurrencies for investment/trading; this depends on the exchange. For every Coinbase which is somewhat forced to strictly control what it sells on its platform (due to strict US. Financial laws which have recently started expanding into crypto) there are at least a dozen wild Chinese exchanges which offer the wildest variety of possible coins to invest in. It seems like almost every day we hear about a new crypto exchange popping up; we even have "classical" stock trading platforms like eToro catching the crypto bug and implementing crypto trading. Eventually, the demand for trading/transacting cryptocurrencies might end up leaving the traditional stock markets in the dust. For now, cryptos are still way behind the biggest money markets out there.

Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-big-is-bitcoin-really-this-chart-puts-it-all-in-perspective-2017-06-21

Crypto markets function similarly to the stock markets, with one simple exception: you are the one doing the investing and trading. There are no brokers, no intermediaries; you are the one who is required to educate himself/herself on the ins and outs of using a crypto market platform.

🏆 Learn how you can create a paper wallet - click here to read more about cryptocurrency wallets.

Another thing that makes these platforms (and crypto in general) stand out from the centralized stock markets are the blockchains of cryptocurrencies involved. These blockchains are basically ledgers publicly accessible to all parties which contain data about every mined coin and every transaction ever made with one of those coins. This ledger is created and maintained thanks to the efforts of the decentralized network of miners in such a way that no one individual or group can counterfeit any portion of the blockchain. Thanks to this fact, everyone can trust that the blockchain hasn't been tampered with and that the data and the coins on it are legitimate. There is no need for centralized entities that will create and control the currency as power and regulation are in the hands of people.

Some more notable differences

Crypto markets are extremely volatile; price hikes and price downfalls can be very drastic and brutal for your portfolio. This happens for many reasons: lack of regulations, price manipulations by bots and whales, pump and dump schemes etc. All of these were previously present while investing in regular stocks; stock markets and governments have realized that fairness would be beneficial to all actors and have implemented rules and laws against these shady practices. Mostly thanks to this lack of regulation are cryptocurrency markets moving at much faster rates than the regular stock markets.
Stocks vs Cryptocurrencies performance in 2017
Another reason for the price volatility is lack of informed investors. As with any new, booming market, you have people who heard about this new Bitcoin craze and decided to put some money into it just for the hell of it. You also have people in dire financial situation that took out mortgages and sold the shirt of their back to invest into Bitcoin, expecting it won't stop growing. However, as soon as the first hike on the road to the moon appeared those people got scared and started selling, which in turn caused the price to drop even harder. The complete psychology of this is nicely summed up in the following chart.

As "weak hands" sell all their holdings and the market consolidates around newly-increased liquidity and informed investors, a new positive cycle and decreased volatility is expected.

Advantages for the developing world

Crypto can provide superior alternative for people in the developing world looking for reliable digital payment channels. India, Australia, Greece, Venezuela, not to mention many African countries, have all recently experienced issues with fiat money which many people relieved by investing into the more stable cryptocurrencies. Investing in stocks isn't an option in most of these countries, as there is a distinct lack of financial intermediaries which can handle people's money in a trusted way.

Source: https://news.bitcoin.com

Cryptocurrencies have much higher turnover rate (rate at which old ones die and are replaced by new ones) than stocks, largely because creating a cryptocurrency is extremely easy. A new company with advanced technology can easily overshadow more traditional, conventional tokens which have stayed true to their cause. There has been talk of Bitcoin "going down" due to its ancient technology and issues with throughput and scalability; its developers have responded by implementing the Lightning network and Rootstock, thus increasing the longevity of the most famous cryptocurrency in the world.

In the stock market, old businesses cannot die out at the pace we see in the cryptocurrency market. Stocks actually have dedicated investors with generations' worth of trust, image, brand recognition and market presence which make it difficult for a company to go under.

Another issue related to turnover are the ICO's (initial coin offerings), which are sprouting left and right recently. It seems like any old company can slap the "blockchain" moniker next to its name and announce an ICO. This has resulted in quite a few scam ICO's in the past, putting the spotlight of the financial authorities on these new flashy tokens. China, Korea and USA have banned their investors from participating in ICO's in an attempt to stifle the rampant scamming in the ICO industry. It is clear that the market is still full of bad ICO's which will eventually go down and take its investors' money with them.

This issue is much milder in the world of stock trading, where a company needs to jump through many hoops to organize an IPO (initial public offering) and become available for public trading on a stock market. Regulations and requirements are set in place to ensure that only the best companies that are capable of long-term profitable existence will be traded on the stock market. Something similar needs to happen on the crypto markets as well in order to finally get rid of the overload of "sh*tcoins".

Legal Rights of Token/Shareholders

Source: http://expertlegalreview.com

Investing in stocks/shares can give a lot of legal rights to the shareholder. He is actually considered an owner of a small fraction of the company he invested in. Some shares come with voting rights which allow the shareholder to take a part of shareholder meetings, where the future of the company is discussed with the managers and the rest of the company's top echelon. If the company liquidates or goes bankrupt the true extent of his ownership rights comes to light; the creditors will be the first ones to get dibs on the company's assets, followed by bondholders, then preferred shareholders, and finally the common shareholders.

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This is not the case if you own cryptocurrencies: owning a cryptocurrency doesn't give you any legal rights. It is just a coin or token that has value based on the fact that people are willing to give it that value. The companies behind cryptocurrencies make it a point to emphasize that cryptocurrencies don't come with any actual rights. Otherwise they enter the territory of securities and the regulations are very strict for anyone who wants to operate there. If the company liquidates, token holders won't get anything from the liquidation mass.

There are many differences between the stock and crypto markets that go far beyond those listed above. However, probably the most important distinction comes down to profits vs risks. Crypto is a much more risky asset which comes with a chance for getting rich overnight. Those overnight profits won't happen just like that; it will depend on how well you evaluate a coin and its company and will also require just a little bit of luck. On the other hand, stocks are much safer but offer smaller returns. While their prices do fluctuate, it is to a much lesser extent. Ultimately what you choose to invest in is up to you. Set your investment goals and find the market that suits those goals the best, and hopefully enjoy your profits.

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How does investing in stocks vs crypto compare? | CaptainAltcoin

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Since the inception of financial markets and instruments people have been scouring the landscape to find the most reliable ways of achieving financial independence. The approach to this issue has mostly been two-pronged: some prefer to "stash" their hard earned money for longer periods of time in an instrument and have it grow organically with ...

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Website 4# - How Cryptocurrency Could Cause a Stock Market Crash

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Website 4# - How Cryptocurrency Could Cause a Stock Market Crash

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This video was very short but provided a lot of major events in the history of Bitcoin. It showed that Bitcoin rose from $775 to $19,000 in one year. This made a lot of people very wealthy, and in doing so made a lot of people rush the market causing it to bubble and eventually burst and go back down.

It is very informative video making you understand that Bitcoin can have serious effects on the stock market. Seeing as to how many people are keeping an eye on cryptocurrency and investing in it makes the stock market change too. This change can be good or bad depending on how events unfold.

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Here's How a Bitcoin Crash Could Bring Down the Entire Stock Market

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Investors beware: There are three plausible ways the bursting of the Bitcoin bubble could hurt the aging bull market in stocks.